Book Review: "Habits Of Grace"

This week’s blog is about a book published by Crossway in 2016 called Habits of Grace: Enjoying Jesus through the Spiritual Disciplines by David Mathis. I highly recommend this book to everyone in the church. It’s a clear, concise, practical, and biblical guide to the spiritual disciplines, or “habits of grace” as the author helpfully describes them. As the subtitle suggests, it is written to motivate us toward the spirit-empowered means of grace for our enjoyment of Jesus, not as a guilt-motivated burden.

Rather than describe the book in detail, I’ve decided that I’d like to give you a flavor for the book through a handful of selected quotes. My hope is that reading these quotes will whet your appetite enough to motivate you to buy the book and read it for yourself. You’ll be blessed if you do.

You can purchase a copy of the book by clicking on one of the following links:

Buy from Amazon
Buy from Westminster Books

Here are a few quotes from the book:

“We cannot earn God’s grace or make it flow apart from his free gift. But we can position ourselves to go on getting as he keeps on giving.”

“There is simply no replacement for finding a regular time and place, blocking out distractions, putting your nose in the text, and letting your mind and heart be led and captured and thrilled by God himself communicating to us in his objective written words.”

“There is a place in Bible reading for ‘raking’ and gathering up the leaves at a swift pace, but when we ‘dig’ in Bible study, we unearth the diamonds. In meditation, we marvel at the jewels.”

“As we aim to feed ourselves daily from the inexhaustible pantry, we need a diet of both breadth and depth. There’s a place for reading whole Bible books in one sitting and a place for going deep in half a verse.”

“When we get alone with the Bible, we are not alone. God has not left us to ourselves to understand his words and feed our own souls. No matter how thin your training, no matter how spotty your routine, the Helper stands ready.”

“The great purpose of prayer is to come humbly, expectantly, and – because of Jesus – boldly into the conscious presence of God, to relate to him, talk with him, and ultimately enjoy him as our great Treasure.”

“The most important voice to hear in the silence is God’s. The point of practicing silence as a spiritual discipline is not so we can hear God’s audible voice, but so we can be less distracted and better able to hear him speak, with even greater clarity, in his word.”

“The healthy Christian, introverted or not, of whatever temperament, in whatever season, seeks not to minimize relationships with his fellows in Christ, but maximize them.”

“Corporate worship is the single most important means of grace and our greatest weapon in the fight for joy, because like no other means, corporate worship combines all three principles of God’s ongoing grace: his word, prayer, and fellowship.”

“We will only go so deep with Jesus until we start yearning to reach out. When our life in him is healthy and vibrant, we not only ache to keep sinking our roots down deep in him, but we also want to stretch out our branches and extend his goodness to others.”